Thank you to everyone who made the 2021 Spring Breakfast such a great success!
This year we asked an important question: What will Utah’s post-pandemic future look like?
To answer that question, we hosted a panel of local and national experts who helped us peer into Utah's future. The panelists answered viewer’s questions focused on five key topics:
Recreation
Housing
Transportation
Climate Change
Economy
Didn't get the chance to tune in but you still want to watch? Click the button below!
Thank you to our sponsors and everyone who attended and submitted questions for our panelists and thank you to our panelists for lending your expertise to an excellent discussion!
The Panelists
Natalie Gochnour
Natalie Gochnour serves as an associate dean in the David Eccles School of Business and director of the Kem C. Gardner Policy Institute at the University of Utah. She also serves as the chief economist for the Salt Lake Chamber. In these roles, she leads the state’s premier public policy institute, helps connect the Eccles School with the broader business community and shares applied economic and business research.
Gochnour’s experience includes a diverse mix of public service and business experience. During her public service, she advised Utah governors Norm Bangerter, Mike Leavitt and Olene Walker. She also served as a political appointee in the George W. Bush administration, serving as an associate administrator at the EPA and counselor to the secretary at Health and Human Services. For seven years she led the public policy priorities of the Salt Lake Chamber.
Gochnour has authored over 250 published columns in Utah Business magazine and the Deseret News and co-hosts the weekly radio program Both Sides of the Aisle on KCPW public radio. She has been recognized by the Downtown Alliance for leading the Downtown Rising movement, YWCA of Salt Lake City for an Outstanding Achievement Award for business, and Wasatch Women magazine as the “Wasatch Woman of the Year.” She serves on the Utah Olympic Legacy Foundation, World Trade Center Utah, and Primary Children’s Hospital boards. She is also a Utah Transportation Commissioner and vice-chair of Envision Utah.
Nico Larco
Nico Larco is a Professor of Architecture and Urban Design at the University of Oregon where he is the Director of the Urbanism Next Center and Co-Director of the Sustainable Cities Institute. Urbanism Next is focused on how technological advances such as new mobility, autonomous vehicles, e-commerce and the sharing economy are changing city form and development. Prof. Larco assists cities and projects with future-proofing, has run workshops and charrettes nationally and internationally on this topic, and is currently coordinating work in this area with various municipal and state agencies across North America and in Europe.
Prof. Larco also researches sustainable urban design, has developed the Sustainable Urban Design Framework and assists projects in how best to apply these principles and approaches. He has published in various academic and professional journals and his work has been covered by Wired, the New York Times, Fast Company, Bloomberg News, Forbes, and the Financial Times of London. Prof. Larco is a Principal at Larco/Knudson, an urban design consulting firm, and a Strategic Advisor at TNO, a Dutch thinktank.
Taylor Mammen
Taylor Mammen is Chief Executive Officer of RCLCO Fund Advisors (RFA), which advises institutional investors on all aspects of their complex real estate investment portfolios, from strategy development to underwriting and asset management. Taylor helped pioneer this business beginning in the aftermath of the Global Financial Crisis, when several prominent pension funds turned to RFA with the goal to construct better performing and more resilient real estate portfolios, and has grown it to become a highly respected institutional real estate advisor, working with some of the largest and most dynamic institutional investors in the world. In the process, Taylor and RFA have sourced, underwritten, and overseen investments on behalf of clients well in excess of $10 billion over the past decade. Taylor leads the firm’s institutional investor client relationships and is responsible for the firm’s growth and development, in addition to serving on the boards of clients’ portfolio companies.
Taylor is also a member of the Executive Committee of RCLCO, which manages shared resources and oversees overall company strategy.
Before helping to build RFA, Taylor joined RCLCO after serving as director of research for a boutique government relations consulting firm in Washington, D.C. and working with the Boston Redevelopment Authority on a public-private initiative to revitalize and “re-knit” downtown Boston in response to the “Big Dig.” He received his Masters in City Planning from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and a Bachelor of Arts in Political Science from Brigham Young University. He is an active member of the Pension Real Estate Association (PREA) and the Urban Land Institute, and is currently on the board of Envision Utah.
Brad Wilson
Rep. Brad Wilson has represented District 15 in the Utah Legislature since 2011 and currently serves as Speaker of the House.
He is President and CEO of Destination Homes, a residential homebuilder in Utah.
Wilson is a member of the Utah Chapter of the Young President’s Organization, has chaired the Davis Chamber of Commerce Board of Directors, the Davis Economic Advisory Council and Children’s Aid Society of Utah. He serves on the National Advisory Council for Weber State University and on the Construction Industry Advisory Council for Brigham Young University.
Rep. Wilson has a business degree from Weber State University and is a graduate of the College of Financial Planning. He is a Davis County native and lives with his wife Jeni and three children in Kaysville, Utah.
Thank you to our sponsors!
